Beaver Brook in Winter

Last Sunday I decided to visit Beaver Brook in Keene. It’s been so long since I’ve been there I didn’t remember when the last time was, so I thought it was time. There is a lot here to see and I wanted to check on a few things.

One of the things I wanted to see was the plantain leaved sedge (Carex plantaginea). This is the only place I’ve ever seen it. Not only does it seem happy here but there are 5 or 6 new plants near it. The leaves on this plant are about 3/4 of an inch wide I’d guess, and they look like crepe paper. It will bloom in late April / early May when the purple trilliums bloom.

I also wanted to see the hobblebushes (Viburnum lantanoides) that grow here. They are one of our most beautiful native viburnums when they bloom with hand size white flower heads in May. Luckily our woods are full of them. This photo shows the flower bud in the center and a new leaf on each side. Their buds are naked, meaning they have no bud scales to protect them, so they have wooly hair instead.

I was a little surprised that Beaver Brook wasn’t frozen over. It has been cold for the past couple of weeks, especially at night. There was still plenty of ice to see though.

Here was some foam that turned to ice, shaped like turkey tail fungi. This is the same kind of foam that forms ice pancakes in the river.

I liked the lacy patterns in this bit of ice. Ice comes in so many shapes and even in different colors, and it can be beautiful.

Here, ice baubles hung off a stone. When it’s cold like this ice will form on any surface that gets wet and with all the splashing going on here there are lots of wet surfaces.

Here were more ice baubles. Some can get quite long but I’d guess these were 5 or 6 inches.

The seep that is here wasn’t frozen but that didn’t surprise me. Hydrologically speaking a seep is a wet place where water reaches the surface from an underground aquifer, and this one stays just like this winter and summer. It rarely freezes solid and it never dries out. 

There are many trees around the seep and all had script lichens (Graphis) on them. Once you get to know a place and know the trees you begin to better understand the things that grow on them. By coming here and watching I’ve learned that the script lichens that grow here only show their apothecia (the dark squiggles) in the cold months. In the summer all you see are whitish growths on the bark. It really is amazing to me that all of this can disappear and reappear each year. Especially because when you look at them closely they look like scars or knife cuts in the body of the lichen. There are at least two different types here, and maybe three. They’re beautiful forms.

I think the greater whipwort liverworts (Bazzania trilobata) were frozen solid. Each one of these tiny worm like beings is about half the diameter of a pencil. A close look shows that they look almost if they had been braided. Each leaf on this leafy liverwort is only about an eighth of an inch wide and has three triangular notches at its base. This is where the trilobata part of the scientific name comes from. It means “having three lobes.” It’s very easy to mistake this common liverwort for moss so you have to look closely. I almost always find them on stone.

When young the female spore capsule (Sporangium) of juniper haircap moss is covered by a cap called a calyptra which protects it. it is very hairy and this is what gives this moss part of its common name. Eventually as the capsule ages it moves from vertical to a more horizontal position and the calyptra falls off but something must have gone wrong here because out of hundreds of capsules this is the only one I saw with the calyptra still in place. When everything goes well the spore capsule continues to ripen after the calyptra comes off and when the time is right the beaked end cap or lid called the operculum will fall off and release the spores to the wind.

I had to stop and check on the stairstep moss (Hylocomium splendens). It is also called glittering wood moss and it’s easy to see why. It’s a beautiful moss that grows on stones as far north as the arctic tundra. It seems fairly rare here; this is the only example that I’ve seen, and it doesn’t seem to be spreading. The name stair step moss comes from the way the new growth “steps up” off the midrib of the previous year’s branch.  Each year a new branch grows from the old and this growth habit allows stair step moss to grow up and over other mosses. It is said that you can tell the age of the moss by counting these steps.

The brook, on the right, was in deep shade most of the way. That made getting shots of ice a challenge.

But the ice on the ledges was at least partially sun lit.

An evergreen fern was on ice, waiting patiently for spring.

One of the best examples of a frost crack that I know of can be found here on a golden birch. Frost cracks happen when the sun warms the tree and its cells just under the bark expand. If nighttime temperatures are cold enough the bark will cool and contract rapidly, quicker than the wood underneath, and this stress on the bark can cause it to crack.  It’s fairly common to hear trees cracking with a sound like a rifle shot on cold nights.

A fallen golden birch dripped icy fingers.

Everything within 10 feet of the brook was covered in ice.

And it still has a month or so to grow even more.

I told myself all the way up here that I wouldn’t do it but then I met a man and woman who told me how beautiful Beaver Brook falls was, so I knew I had to see it. It’s quite a climb down here but I had micro spikes on so I wasn’t worried about slipping. You do have to worry about falling though because the path down is very steep and momentum will get you moving fast if you aren’t careful. Luckily there are trees to hang on to so I made it down without incident. Once there I found a very icy waterfall.

The sun just happened to be falling right on the falls, which helped with photos. It can be quite dark down in this natural canyon.

I remembered the year the falls was sheathed in ice, which almost completely deadened the sound. It was a bit eerie. Not today though; they fell with a roar and were a beautiful thing to behold. There was also a strong breeze coming up the brook toward the falls, so it was a bit chilly here.

Looking up from the brook I thought this might have to be the last time I climb down here. My trick knee seems to get a little trickier each time I do it.

But for now I didn’t want to think of such things because the sun was shining and there was beauty everywhere; even in a piece of icicle someone had dropped.

In the winter, the world gets sharp. Beautiful things happen. ~Peter Fiore

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Beaver Brook in Winter

One of the strangest things I’ve found in nature is when a normally roaring brook is muffled by ice, so last weekend I went up to Beaver Brook to see if it had been muffled or if it was still singing. As this photo shows, it was singing. Loudly.

There were places though, where the ice had almost grown from bank to bank. The ice doesn’t quiet it absolutely but very close, and it’s an eerie thing to know a brook is there and not be able to hear it.

Icicles hung from the edges of ice shelves but they weren’t as impressive as in years past. This has been such a warm winter. It gets cool and snows but then it warms up and the snow melts, and then it happens again, so we have no real snow depth. The reason it has lasted here is because Beaver Brook flows through a shaded canyon between two hills.

I saw more ice on the ledges that line the old road than on the brook.

An evergreen fern waited patiently for spring.

What I call the color changing lichen had put on its lavender / blue coat. My color finding software sees more “steel blue” than any other color but in the warm months this lichen is ash gray. When I see it I always wonder how many other lichens change color. This one is granular and crustose and I’ve never been able to identify it.

I didn’t want to get too close to where the color changing lichen grew because the ledges here are unstable and large pieces have been falling recently. Cracks like this one are caused by water running into them and freezing. The expanding ice makes the crack bigger and bigger and eventually the stone falls, pried away from the ledge face by the ice.

On the hillsides above me there were many fallen trees. Since there are electric lines running through here they have to be cut when they fall on the wires.

I was sorry to see that one of the fallen trees was an old beech with hundreds of beechnut husks on it. These nuts are an important food source for many different animals but I hardly see them at all.

A maple leaf had such beautiful color it stopped me in my tracks and held me mesmerized for a time. I took far too many photos of it but colorful maple leaves are unexpected in February.

I think it has been over a year since I last saw the yellow jelly fungus (Tremella mesenterica) called witches butter, even though they’re fairly common. Though jelly fungi grow at all times of year I think of them as winter fungi because that’s usually when I find them. I often see them on fallen branches, often oak or alder, and I always wonder how they got way up in the tree tops. We also have black, white, red, orange and amber jelly fungi and I’d have to say that white and red are the rarest. I think I’ve seen each color only two or three times. An odd fact about jelly fungi is that they can be parasitic on other fungi.

There are lots of striped maples (Acer pensylvanicum) growing along Beaver Brook. They have colorful twigs and buds and are among the easiest trees to identify no matter what time of year because of the green and white vertical stripes on their bark. Their terminal buds have two scales and are valvate, meaning they have two bud scales. Striped maple is very fussy about where it grows and will not stand pollution, heat, or drought. It likes cool, shady places with sandy soil that stays moist. They bloom in June and have very pretty green bell shaped blossoms.

Hobblebush (Viburnum lantanoides) also does well along the brook. Their buds are naked, meaning they have no scales to protect them, so they have wooly hair instead. This photo shows that the flower bud in the center and the two leaf buds on either side are clothed more in wool than hair, but they come through the coldest winters and still bloom beautifully each spring.

The chubby little green and purple buds of red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) are some of my favorites, but I don’t see them often. Lucky they grow along the brook in places so I could admire them on this day. Red elderberry buds have imbricate scales, meaning they overlap like shingles. Soon the buds will swell and the purple scales will pull back to reveal the green scales underneath.

Here was something I’ve never seen; the normally round buds of red elderberry had elongated. There were several that had done this and I can’t figure out why they would have. Maybe they can gather more sunlight with this shape and are evolving right before the eyes that care enough to watch.

When light rain or drizzle falls on cold snow it can freeze into a crust and that’s what had happened during the last storm. The shiny crust can be very hard to capture on film but here it is, on the other side of the brook. Crusty snow can be awfully hard to walk on because it acts like it will support your weight, but at the last minute it breaks and your foot falls through it. Having it happen over and over makes for a jarring and tiring walk.

A tree fell perfectly and wrapped its arms around another.

Native witch hazels (Hamamelis virginiana) also line the banks of Beaver Brook. This is a shot of the recently opened seed pods, which explode with force and can throw the seeds as far as 30 feet. I’ve read that you can hear them pop when they open and even though I keep trying to be there at the right time to see and hear it happening, I never am. Seeing the ice on the one on the left, I’m wondering if the pods hold water.

I like to visit my old friend the stair-step moss (Hylocomium splendens) when I’m here. It’s a very beautiful moss that grows on stones as far north as the arctic tundra. It seems fairly rare here; this is the only example that I’ve seen, and it doesn’t seem to be spreading. When dry stair step moss has a slight satiny sheen to it, and that’s probably how it came by its other common name of glittering wood-moss. The name stair step moss comes from the way the new growth “steps up” off the midrib of the previous year’s branch.  Each year a new branch grows from the old and this growth habit allows stair step moss to grow up and over other mosses. It is said that you can tell the age of the moss by counting these steps.

The liverwort called greater whipwort (Bazzania trilobata) was frozen absolutely solid. Even frozen it still reminds me of centipedes. It’s very easy to mistake this common liverwort for moss so you have to look closely. The root-like growths are new branches. They aren’t always present but sometimes there will be a lot of them as there were here. This was a happy liverwort, even though it was frozen.

This scene of green algae in a seep reminded me of spring. Hydrologically speaking a seep is a wet place where water reaches the surface from an underground aquifer. This seep is a warm one; in all the years I’ve known it I’ve never seen it completely freeze. Seeps don’t have a single point of origin like a spring, instead they form a puddle that never dries up and doesn’t flow. They’re an important water source for many small animals and birds and unusual plants and fungi can often be found in and around them.

The waters of the stream played the part of the orchestra, and the sunlight provided the dancers. Every now and then a crescendo of wind highlighted the symphony in the clearing by the creek.
~Edward Mooney Jr.

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Hiking Up A Waterfall

I wait until the leaves are off the trees to go to 40 foot falls because the light is very dim in that particular part of the forest. It can sometimes be dark even after the leaves have fallen because of all the evergreens overhead but usually on a bright sunny day like this one the camera can cope. There are three waterfalls along this section of Merriam Brook; what I call the lower, middle and upper falls.

Though it looks like I was standing in the brook when I took the previous photo of the lower falls I didn’t even get my feet wet, because the brook takes a sharp left turn at this spot. That’s an unusual way for a brook to behave in these parts.

I was sorry to see that many of the beech trees here had beech bark disease, which is caused by beech scale insects (Cryptococcus fagisuga) that pierce the bark and leave a wound. If the spores from either of two fungi, Neonectria faginata or Neonectria ditissima, find the wound and grow, cankers form. These cankers are what look like blisters on the bark of beech trees, as can be seen in the above photo. The disease originally came from Europe and the first case in the United States was reported in 1929 in Massachusetts. By 2004, the disease had spread as far west as Michigan and as far south as western North Carolina. There is no cure and infected trees will ultimately die. Beech is a beautiful tree at any time of year. I hope science is trying to find a cure.

Christmas ferns (Polystichum acrostichoides) were dotted here and there on the forest floor. They are one of 5 or 6 evergreen ferns found in these woods, and their common name is thought to come from the early settler’s habit of using its fronds as Christmas decorations. Native Americans used the Christmas fern to treat chest ailments like pneumonia and to relieve flu symptoms.

If you look closely you can see that each Christmas fern leaf has a tiny “toe,” which makes it look like a Christmas stocking. Another unusual thing about Christmas fern is the shape of its fronds, which start off narrow at the base, widen in the middle, and then get narrow again at the tip. Most ferns have fronds that taper gradually; widest at the base and narrower towards the tip.

A look at the middle falls reveals how strong the forces at play are, with grown trees torn up and tossed around like first year saplings. I can say for sure that I don’t want to be near this brook when it floods badly.

A different view of the middle falls.

Two things make the climb to the upper falls a little hazardous; slippery oak leaves and old bridge cables. I’ve tripped over the cables and slipped on the oak leaves and have taken a couple of spills up here, but luckily nothing serious has come of it. I watch my step and pick my way up the hill and usually have no problems, but those oak leaves are always very slippery.

The old bridge cables are slowly being engulfed by the trees they rub against. I’ve read that a snowmobile bridge made out of steel cables and wooden planks  was washed away in severe flooding in August of 2003.  Apparently this cable and a plank or two that I’ve seen is all that’s left of it. Merriam brook really raged at that time and also washed away large parts of the road and flooded houses. Several other towns had similar problems at the time.

This is a look back downstream from near the upper falls showing many fallen trees in and along the brook. Some have been torn up by the roots.

The deep gorge that the brook has cut through the hillside above the middle falls is a very rugged and beautiful place. I think it would be a great place to visit on a hot summer day because it’s probably always a good 10 degrees cooler here. It is certainly cool in November.

The upper falls seem a bit anti-climactic at times and you wonder how so little water could fill this stream, but in this shot they’re still quite far into the distance. It’s almost impossible to get back in there; that boulder in the foreground would easily crush a car, and I didn’t have a zoom lens with me. I think there must be a large pool under the falls and the stream flows from it. Someday when I have someone with me I’m going to continue climbing and find out for sure. I don’t know where the name “40 foot falls” comes from because the upper falls aren’t 40 feet high and the brook is far more than 40 feet long in this section of falls.

Someone had built a campfire at some time in the past. I think I’d get those leaves away before I built another one.

This would be a good place to sit for a while but I doubt I’d ever be able to sleep here. The roar of the brook is loud in places and you would never hear a bear (or any other animal) coming.

It would be a long way down from up there. I always wonder if animals ever tumble over edges like this one, or do they sense the danger? I have a feeling they can sense it because I have never found a dead animal at the base of a cliff.

You’ve certainly seen a lot of moss in these photos and one of them is broom moss (Dicranum scoparium.) It gets its common name from the way the leaves all point in the same general direction, making it look as if it had been swept by a broom. It’s a fairly common moss that grows in large tufts or mats on logs and tree bases, soil or stone. It was very dry on this day so it wasn’t at its best. It’s a moss that you feel you want to pet, as you would an animal.

Greater whipwort (Bazzania trilobata) grows right alongside mosses and is fairly common, but it’s a liverwort. A close look shows that it looks almost if it has been braided. They always remind me of a nest of centipedes.

Each leaf on this leafy liverwort is only about an eighth of an inch wide and has three triangular notches at its base. This is where the trilobata part of the scientific name comes from. It means “having three lobes.” This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to these tiny leaves.

Even when it’s dry as dust orange crust fungus (Stereum complicatum) holds its color. That color is so bright it’s like a beacon in the woods and it can be seen from quite far away on fallen branches. The complicatum part of its scientific name means “folded back on itself” and as can be seen in this photo, that is often just what it does. At this point it felt like a potato chip but with a little rain it’ll feel just like your earlobe.

Polypody ferns grew on the boulders, watered by the mists. This is another of our evergreen ferns and it is quite common. It almost always grows on stone, hence the name “rock cap fern.”

After a while of exploring the canyon and surrounding area it was time to head back down the hill. I like visiting waterfalls; they help remind me of the power of nature, which is certainly visible throughout this torn landscape. They also make me feel small, and I think it’s a good thing that a person feels small every now and then. Someday if I dare, I’d like to see this place just after heavy rains when the water rages.

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it. ~Lao Tzu

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Into the Unknown

Last weekend I decided to explore a place that I first saw a couple of years ago and which I’ve been curious about ever since. My hike down a section of the Cheshire Rail Trail would carry me over this stone arch tunnel built when the railroad came through circa 1848. That was back when only horse drawn wagons used it and to this day it’s only wide enough for one car at a time.

Off in the woods is a culvert built as a smaller version of the tunnel that carries water instead of cars under the rail bed. Both the culvert and tunnel were built by expert masons from stone quarried very near here. They are beautiful examples of the stone mason’s art and are also fine examples of taking pride in your work. Even though these culverts are in places where they couldn’t be seen by the public they were built as if everyone in Keene, New Hampshire would be seeing them.

It was a cold morning and the stones in the stream wore skirts of ice.

This is the view of the stream from the rail trail above the culvert that passes under the rail bed.

And this is the view of the road that passes through the tunnel under the rail bed.

And unfortunately this is the start of the rail trail section that I planned to follow. The ice stretched on into the distance so I went back to my truck to get my Yaktrax, but that’s when I discovered that I had foolishly left them at home. There was nothing to do but walk on the edges of the trail and hope for the best. I had to pinwheel my arms a couple of times to keep my balance but I didn’t fall. I actually saw 2 bike riders and a jogger riding and running across ice just like this. I don’t know how they did it; it was all I could do to walk on it. Walking on ice makes your body tense up and it can be very tiring.

Finally the ice gave way to gravel and from here on it wasn’t bad.

But there was still ice to be seen in the drainage ditches that line each side of the rail bed. It was too thin to walk on but admiring it was possible.

Before I knew it I was at the detour that goes uphill and around the original rail bed.

And that’s because this is the original rail bed, which is obviously no longer used. I’ve taken the detour around it and I’ve been able to look down into what is a deep railway cut through the hillside from up there. Since I first saw it two years ago I’ve been curious about what is in there and today I planned to find out. There were a few obstacles ahead but they didn’t look unsurmountable. I had to make myself very small to crawl under the tree in the photo, but I got through the tangle.

I should say that I got through the first tangle. It looked like there were plenty more up ahead.

Most I had to simply climb over, but ice made it challenging in places.

It was easy to see why there were so many fallen trees in here. They were perched on the brink of ledges which looked like they were about to crumble and fill the space with rubble. Sizeable stones had  fallen in places but I didn’t really want to think about that. I could only hope I wouldn’t be in here when anything fell.

Trees of all sizes had toppled onto the rail bed and each one had to be climbed over or crawled under. While in this place I didn’t see a single foot print and I wondered if it was because nobody wanted to go through what I was going through. The next time you meet a snowmobiler I hope you’ll give them a big thank you, because without their voluntary trail maintenance all of our rail trails would probably look just like this, and that would be a shame.

Reminders of the railroad workers were everywhere. When this rail bed was blasted out of the rock they drilled a hole with a steam drill or by hand with a star drill and sledge hammer. They then filled the hole with black powder, lit the fuse, and probably ran. And then they had tons of blasted rock to move without the use of gasoline powered vehicles. These people certainly earned their pay.

There was some ice here but it wasn’t anywhere near as big or as colorful as the spectacular ice falls that I’ve seen in the other deep railway cut on the way to Westmoreland. This ice was very clear.

Finally the fallen trees thinned out so I could walk normally without climbing or crawling. I could tell that there was needle ice under the thick mat of leaves by the way they crunched with every step. For a change I was grateful for the ice underfoot because otherwise it would have been very wet here. In fact I’m not sure I could get through it in warm weather without my knee high rubber boots on. Normally the drainage ditches would keep the rail bed very dry, but they were blocked in several places and had soaked it.

A telegraph pole leaned against one of the walls. These used to be strung along the sides of the rail beds with glass insulators on cross arms. I haven’t seen one of these for a long time.

The end of the line was nothing but a pile of dirt covered by last year’s fallen leaves but that was a problem, because railroad tracks don’t just stop at a dirt pile; this line ran north to Westmoreland and then cut over into Vermont at one time, so I know it was here. The guard rails for Hurricane Road, which was laid out in 1761, can just be seen at the top of this photo. Hurricane Road ran to the Westmoreland town line and the railroad came to this area in 1848, so the tracks would have had to run under the road at this spot. So does that mean that there is a beautiful granite tunnel like the one in the first photo of this post under that huge pile of dirt? Did they take the tunnel apart and fill in the hole when the railroad stopped running? These are questions that I can’t answer yet but there must be a record somewhere, and the county Historical Society will be a good place to start searching.

A rail comes out of the pile of dirt where the tunnel should be but it is loose and not attached to any ties that I could see. Piles of the old ties were stacked here and there along the rail trail before I entered the canyon.

When I was a boy I wanted to be a plant explorer in the Amazon jungle and though this place was far from jungle like it was a kind of Shangri La like lost world and I felt right at home. I searched the walls for the great scented liverwort (Conocephalum conicum) but I don’t think enough groundwater trickled down the walls to support them. Instead I saw what must have been many thousands of the smaller greater whipwort liverwort (Bazzania trilobata.) It doesn’t seem to need as much surface water as some of the others and was thriving here. There were also plenty of mosses but I couldn’t get close enough to the walls to get any macro photos of them. I’m already looking forward to seeing this place when all the plants start growing. It might be a good spot to see some of our native red columbine.

To me this place was completely wild and beautiful and though it was slow going in places there was a lot to see. Time must have gotten snagged on a branch of that first tree I crawled under because I lost all sense of it and was surprised to see that 5 hours had passed when I got back to the start of the trail. It had felt more like 15 minutes.

Surrender to the unknown and trust that the universe will lead you home. ~Karen A. Baquiran

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A Walk Along The Old Abandoned Road

I’ve agreed to help a group of youngsters called Pathfinders in their quest to find good examples of mosses, lichens and liverworts. I know of 2 places where they could find all three of them without too much trouble and decided that the old abandoned road along Beaver Brook would probably be the safest. From what I can tell Pathfinders are anywhere from 10-15 years old and get merit badges and other awards each time they meet certain goals, much like the Boy Scouts.

Anyone who has read this blog for very long knows that if you stand me up in front of a group of people and ask me to speak I immediately forget everything I’ve ever known, but this should be very different. By reading other nature blogs I know that people who lead excursions like these usually go off on the hunt alone before they lead a group, so that’s what I did. Beaver Brook was almost completely iced over with just a narrow ribbon of water glistening in the sunshine. It was sunny but it was cold and the snow where it hadn’t been walked on was quite deep. Since I made this trip we’ve gotten over a foot of new snow, so I hope the Pathfinders have already earned their winter survival badges.

 

I chose this place because of the easily accessible ledges and trees. Since vertical ledges and trees don’t accumulate much snow the lichens, mosses and liverworts that grow on them are easy to find all winter long. We’ll have to pay close attention to ice though; we don’t want anyone standing under that. Since this trip is planned towards the end of the month the ice could be rotten and falling by then.

Beautiful smokey eye boulder lichens(Porpidia albocaerulescens) grow on the stone of the ledges along with many other lichens and mosses. I’m hoping that each Pathfinder has his or her own loupe or magnifying glass so they can see details like the beautiful sky blue fruiting bodies (Apothecia) on this lichen. Part of this lichen in the top center of the photo was under ice, and what a difference it made in its appearance.

While I was looking for lichens I found a pocket of milky quartz crystals that I’ve never seen here before. It seems like every time I come here I see something new and on this day, between lichens and quartz crystals, I found three things that I had never seen here. That’s why it pays to follow the same trails over and over; you think you’ve seen all there is to see but you find that you haven’t even come close.

There was a quarter sized hole in the snow that must have had warm water vapor rising up through it, because its edges were decorated with delicate, feather like frost crystals.

Yellow feather moss (Homalothecium lutescens) always looks pale and sickly but it is perfectly healthy, as its spore capsule production shows. This moss is rare here and this small clump is the only example I know of, so maybe it will earn the Pathfinders some extra points.

I won’t tell you how many shots of this yellow feather moss spore capsule I had to take before I got a useable one, but it was a lot. This example still has its tiny, pointy, red cap-like lid (operculum), meaning it hasn’t released its spores yet.

Stair step moss (Hylocomium splendens) is another beautiful moss that I’ve seen nowhere but here. It’s looking a little dry at the moment but it will snap back as soon as it warms up and we get some rain. This moss gets its common name from the way new leaves “step up” from the backs of older leaves.

I found a crustose lichen that I’ve never seen before. It grew on tree bark and I think that it might be a fused rim lichen (Lecanora symmicta.) Fused rim lichens get their name from the way the tan colored fruiting bodies (Apothecia) sometimes fuse together. I don’t know if this is a rare lichen or if I’ve just never noticed it before because it fruits in winter, but it’s something else that might earn the Pathfinders extra points.

I’ve known for a long time that lichens change color when they dry out but I didn’t know that cold affected them. Then I started seeing blue lichens in places where I was sure there were none before and I realized that some of the lichens that I saw in the summer were turning blue in winter. That isn’t much help when it comes to identifying them though, so now I have to go back when it’s warmer and see if I can figure out what they are. Once I’ve identified them I can see what the books say about them turning blue.

The Pathfinders need to find 5 mosses, 5 lichens, and 1 liverwort and the greater whipworts (Bazzania trilobata) that grow on the ledges here will take care of the liverwort requirement. They’ve shriveled a bit because of the cold and dryness but it’s still obvious that they aren’t a moss. I always find these liverworts growing on stones near streams, so they must like high humidity.

Script lichens (Graphis) are another candidate for a hand lens but well worth the effort. There are 39 species of script lichens in North America and many more throughout the world and their most important identification characteristic is their squiggly apothecia, which look like ancient script written on tree bark.  I counted at least five different species on this day in just this small area, but I think you could probably spend a lifetime trying to identify script lichens. If I was still a teenager I might take on such a challenge.

I’m sure that the Pathfinders will find all that they’re looking for and plenty more besides. I even found a bright yellow fungus that I think might be a crowded parchment (Stereum complicatum), even though they are usually orange. Color like this is always a welcome sight in winter and I hope I can remember where it was so I can show it to them.

The only thing I can’t be sure of is how much snow we’ll have by the day of our trip. I’ve already had to start wearing gaiters, but if we keep getting two or three snowstorms each week like we have been lately we might all need snowshoes.

I’m glad that I made this solo journey because now I know that the kids won’t be disappointed. There is plenty here to see and I hope they will come away from this place with an urge to see more and learn more. I also hope the knowledge that they can see beauty virtually anywhere as long as they are willing to look for it will stay with them for a good long time.

Every child is born a naturalist. His eyes are, by nature, open to the glories of the stars, the beauty of the flowers, and the mystery of life.  ~ Ritu Ghatourey

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Time for a Climb

Last weekend I planned to climb a mountain to see the foliage colors from above but the weather had other plans. On Saturday it rained until about 1:00 pm and on Sunday morning the fog was about as thick as it ever gets here. I stopped in at a local swamp to see what I could see.

I couldn’t see much of anything except the fuzzy outline of a beaver lodge off shore.

Once the rain stopped on Saturday I climbed Hewes Hill where Tippin Rock is. By the time I reached the top the sun was fully out and pointed directly at the camera, so none of the photos are worth showing. On Sunday once the fog lifted I was able to reach the top a little earlier in the day but once again the lighting was harsh.

 

On the way up I found a rock that was covered with greater whipwort liverworts (Bazzania trilobata,) which always remind me of centipedes. They are quite small and from a distance they look a lot like moss, so you have to look closely to see them. I was surprised to see them here because I’ve always found them near water before.

I also saw some wolf’s milk slime mold (Lycogala epidendrum.) The fruiting bodies of this slime mold look a lot like light colored, pinkish brown puffballs but the proof is in the squeezing. Immature examples will release a pink liquid like that shown in the photo. Some describe the liquid as having a toothpaste like consistency but examples I’ve seen have always been more like a thick liquid. Older examples will have powdery gray spores inside. I always find them growing on logs at about this time of year.

 

An eastern hemlock log had some orange jelly fungi (Dacrymyces palmatu.) growing on it. This fungus looks a lot like yellow witches butter (Tremella mesenterica) but witches butter grows on hardwood logs. This fungus is common and I see it at all times of year, even in winter. What you see here would fit on a quarter.

Something else found on eastern hemlocks is the hemlock varnish shelf mushroom (Ganoderma tsugae.) This mushroom’s common name comes from its shiny cap, which looks like it has been varnished. It is considered the most important of all the herbs and substances used in Chinese Herbal Medicine, including ginseng. In China it is called the Reishi mushroom and scientists around the world are researching its anti-cancer potential.

The trail was carpeted in leaves all the way up and the smells of fall were heavy in the damp air.

 

Whoever painted the blue blazes on the trees must have had some paint left over. They must have been having a good day too.  Actually, in a place like this it’s hard not to be happy.

Before long you see the sign for Tippin Rock.

As if you could miss a 40 ton glacial erratic perched on a hilltop! Tippin Rock gets its name from the way that it will rock if pushed in the right place. After my last post about the rock I got an email from a man who was at a dedication ceremony for the rock three years ago, and he told me that he watched some kids climb up on it. By all standing on one end of it they got it rocking back and forth. But we’re not here for the boulder this time.

This time we’re here for the foliage. Unfortunately I don’t have any great photos of it because of the way the rain and fog forced me to delay my climbs until the afternoon when the sun was almost directly ahead of me.

These photos will give you some idea of what I saw though. I’m surprised how many bare trees there are in this one.

It’s really too bad that the light made it so difficult for the camera to catch what I saw, because the foliage was beautiful from up here. I sat and admired it for a while, hoping a stray cloud might dim the sun, but it never happened.

This shot was taken with my cell phone and shows that it also had trouble with the bright sunshine. It also shows, in the lower left corner, the sheer cliff edges found here. This isn’t a place to be wandering around in the dark without a flashlight but it’s a great place to visit during the daytime.

I’ve never known anyone yet who doesn’t suffer a certain restlessness when autumn rolls around. . . . We’re all eight years old again and anything is possible. ~Sue Grafton

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Another Trip to Beaver Brook Falls

 

Another warm sunny day last weekend prompted me to follow this old abandoned road up to Beaver Brook falls once more. I thought that, the way things were warming up so fast, it might be my last chance to see them in their frozen state.

  

The blue ice on the ledges reminded me of the aquamarine crystals I used to find while mineral hunting. I can’t say that blue ice is rare but I’ve only seen it in two places. As I learned from reading Sue’s Back Yard Biology blog, blue ice happens when the oxygen-hydrogen bonds in water absorb the red parts of the spectrum and reflect blue light back. Further reading tells me that it is also very dense. These ledges are about 15-20 feet high and the ice formations are bigger than tree trunks.

 

Beaver brook also had some interesting ice formations growing in it.

 

It was warm enough to thaw the amber jelly fungi (Exidia recisa). I like holding it up to the light so I can see through it because it looks like stained glass, but I’ve never noticed the yellowish spots in it before. Amber jellies are true “winter fungi” and that is when I usually find them.

 

There are still plenty of seeds on the New England asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae). In fact I’m still seeing an abundance of seeds, nuts and berries everywhere I go. That strikes me as odd but it could be that I’ve just never noticed how much is left in the spring before.

 

This boulder sits in the woods on the far side of the brook so I can’t get to it to see if it is a true glacial erratic, but it’s easy to see from where I stand that it’s as big as a house.  There is quite a steep hill on that side of the brook and I wonder what stopped its rolling further down the hill and into the brook.

  

There are some interesting lichens here, like this smokey eye boulder lichen (Porpidia albocaerulescens). One thing that makes it so interesting to me is how the whitish coating on the black fruiting disks (Apothecia) changes color when the light comes from different anglers.  They can appear light gray, dark gray, light blue or dark blue.  They change color because of the whitish waxy coating that reflects ultra violet rays and is very similar to the bloom on plums, blueberries, and black raspberry canes.

 

Every time I come here I see something that I’ve never seen here before and this time was no different. In the case of the greater whip wort (Bazzania trilobata) in the above photo I’m sure that I missed it because you have to look closely to see that it is a liverwort and not a moss.  Bazzania trilobata is a leafy liverwort that likes high humidity. It always reminds me of centipedes.

 

I’m not sure why it is called greater whipwort, because each leaf is only about an eighth of an inch wide and the group of plants in the previous photo isn’t 6 inches across. The trilobata part of the scientific name refers to the way that each leaf ends in 3 triangular notches.  The root-like growths are branches.

  

Ice must be a great insulator because the 40-50 foot tall falls, like the brook itself, was silent. It seems so strange for this place to be silent after hearing the very load roar of the falls in summer.

To get a really good view of the falls you have to climb down quite a steep embankment, which I’ve decided would be foolish to do in winter, so that’s why there are trees in the way in this shot.

 

This is part of the reason I don’t climb down the embankment to the falls. If you tipped a Volkswagen Beetle on its side it would fit right into this hole with room to spare.  The depth from the top of the snow layer down to the water surface was about 7 feet, and I stood there thinking that if I accidently stumbled into a hole like this, I would most likely never get out of it. It reminded me once again why you have to have your wits about you when you’re in the woods.

 

This is probably the strangest thing I saw this day. I’m assuming it is a spider’s egg sac, but I’m not sure. It was hanging from some moss by a thread of silk like a tiny Christmas ornament.

 

This is a closer look at the whatever-it-is. It had a little stocking cap like growth on top that was opened, but I couldn’t see any of this until I cropped the photo because it was so small. The “orb” itself was no bigger than a sixteenth of an inch across. If you’re reading this and know what it is I’d like to hear from you.

Note: If you’d like to read more about this place just type “Beaver Brook” in the search box in the upper right corner.

The whole secret of the study of nature lies in learning how to use one’s eyes.  ~George Sand

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